Who is at the Top of the Charts?

If I see another permutation of the name "Po" in a BG, I think I'll scream.

I should have been checking whether screen caps are back working so I could have caught it, but there was one Arathi Basin run wherein two of the participants were named Po (one on each side).  Every other BG I'd run from a period of Tuesday through early Thursday has had a different "Po" as well.  At first I thought it was the same player, but noooo.....

All these Kung Fu Panda references, and we haven't even gotten to the Pandaren yet.

***

In case you haven't been in a low level BG lately, Disco Priests are the current OP class right now.  You know how much fun it is to have 4+ people beating on a Prot Pally without much success?  That Pally has now been replaced by the Disco Priest.  I couldn't count the number of times multiple people ganged up on a Disco Priest in a BG, only to have the Priest emerge unscathed.

I'm sorry, but there's something very wrong about a Clothie being able to handle people like that.  We're talking about a Priest, not a Jedi.

Disco priests have suddenly become so popular in the entry level BG range that their numbers are approaching 'DK in Outland' levels.  I was in an Arathi Basin BG on Wednesday where there were six Disco Priests on the Alliance side, and four on the Horde side.  And who topped the kill charts in that BG?  The Disco Priests.  All of them.

***

My slowness issue seems to have been corrected in the latest 5.0.5 patch, although a perusal of the patch notes didn't reveal anything specific to my problem.    Unfortunately, the washed out effect is still there, despite me tweaking the graphics settings like crazy.

As is typically the case in software, my issues are more likely "artifacts" or "features" as opposed to bugs.  I haven't come across anything new, but I guess we'll see what comes up.

***

In TOR, I managed to provide an interesting bug case for the devs.

I'd created a Trooper, and while she was working on her initial class quest on Ord Mandell, I'd stumbled upon the previously bugged mission The Ambush.  Well, I muddled through it, but afterwards the thing refused to complete, but at the same time, I was given the next mission in the sequence.  Therefore, I've got two quests from the same chain sitting in my Mission Log, and I can't complete the one because of interference from the other.  The devs have tried a few things --especially since they fixed that mission on Tuesday's down time-- but they're still scratching their heads over my Trooper's conundrum.  I presume they could manually intervene with my toon and correct it manually, but they probably want to figure out how it got there so it doesn't happen to other people.

Considering I'm playing my Trooper as a complete no-nonsense sort, she would not take kindly to this situation.  (Think Sergeant Mack on Taris in the bonus series, and you get the idea.)

***

Some months into Cata, I'd stated how tactical Vashj'ir was for ranged DPS was, and how liberating it was for a Mage to have that vertical dimension to work from.  When you go straight from Wrath zones to Vashj'ir without stopping to gear up, the Cata 'jump' meant you had to take it easy and work a pull at a time until you got yourself a complete set of baseline Cata green gear.  This was a bit of a sea change from what people were used to leveling up through Wrath, although the Storm Peaks and Icecrown did have a bit of that tactical feel to it.

To a lesser extent, that tactical feel is what it's like leveling out in the field for TOR, although it feels like that on a more consistent basis.  WoW --especially in the post-5.0.4 world-- seems built for steamrolling over mobs out in the field.

Now, a game like Age of Conan, however, is much more unforgiving.  And brutal.

I was reminded of that when I returned to my Barbarian and worked a bit on some quests in Old Tarantia.  Unlike WoW and TOR (and LOTRO, for that matter), AoC does not go in for so-called 'heroic combat'.  You definitely have to work your way patiently through mobs if they're at-level, and more than one mob at a time often spells doom to your player.  The AoC mobs are also much MUCH more sensitive to activity nearby, and will aggro from a much greater distance than in WoW or TOR.

These little touches of realism keep me grounded after playing sessions of "Jump into the fray and kill them all!!!" fighting found in WoW or TOR.  It also helps my leveling experience out in the other two games, because I play more conservatively and patiently.

Perhaps I'm onto something here, because I do get a lot of satisfaction playing different MMOs, and I can enjoy them for what they are.  From my perspective, they complement each other, because I'm not in a rush to be the first or the absolute best.  I'm not trying to be that hard core raider slogging through hard modes, but rather just having fun puttering around in different worlds.

Now, if someone will get around to creating an MMO version of Lankhmar....

Some More Post-Patch Notes

In the Arms Race, My Demo is Now a Pinto

The post patch damage boost has hit Strand of the Ancients (and presumably Isle of Conquest) hard. When you couple a damage boost with the L78 Cata gear, those demos go down very very quickly.  Be prepared to overload demos even more than usual, especially at the L75-L79 range.

Additionally, it seems like Hunters hit for even more than before, but Rogues not quite as much.  It might be that for the Rogues I'm seeing the impact of Health inflation, but I haven't gotten into as many BGs as I'd like to be sure.

Oh, and beware of the "bargain" part of Dark Bargain.  I don't think you need me telling you how much fun it is having a Warlock "pop a bubble" and then afterwards getting laid low by the post-bubble damage.  However, Soul Link isn't as useful as before, because the damage flows both ways and the Warlock's pet has half the health when Soul Link is active.

I still haven't won a BG since the patch dropped.  I think that's partially due to people hashing out their new abilities, but I've also not been impressed by strategy in BGs this week either.  Considering I've been tweaking things too, I'm not really complaining.  Just noting.

Being a Bit Cheeky

The screen capture for WoW wasn't working as of this morning, so I wasn't able to capture the now "normal" view of a Warlock's Shivarra:

From Wikipedia.  Who knew?

As Adelwulf walked around Dalaran with his Shivarra pet, I felt like he was in an episode of Jersey Shore.  Going from the Succubus' 1970s KISS-esque outfit to the Shivarra's adolescent fantasy model makes me wonder who is giving approvals to some of the changes.  First, they come up with Pet Battles, which definitely appeal to the Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Goh set.  Then, they decide on the Shivarra as a replacement for the Succubus, which is like dropping a spark onto middle-school tinder.  (Think how middle school boys reacted to Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? back in 1988, and you get the idea.)  Even when compared to other RPG fantasy women, such as Seoni from Paizo's Pathfinder RPG, the Shivarra has less clothing on.

Seoni the Sorceress,
From Paizo.com

I'm not exactly sure how to take the Shivarra.  Her angry/slightly insane struggle against her bonds fits the "binding a demon against their will" portion of the Warlock, but I'm more than a bit uncomfortable about that view from the rear.  In an ironic twist, I'm okay with the Succubus/Incubus g-string wearing demon that the Demonologist in Age of Conan summons, because a) AoC has a mature rating, and b) there's no gender bias skewed in favor of a female demon.  (There's a hetero bias in AoC in that female Demonologists can only summon Incubi and males the Succubi, but that's a different issue.)  WoW, on the other hand, is really marketing itself to around the tween and up set, and that Shivarran backside raises sexuality images that WoW has been carefully neutering from it's PvE in-game content.  I'd probably not feel as uncomfortable about the Shivarra if it wasn't for the "Hey kids, WoW Pokemon!" that Blizzard is using as a big selling point in Mists.  "Come for Pokemon, stay for the ass" isn't probably the tagline Blizz wants right now.

I'd imagine that more that a few people are grumbling about "Goldshire!" right now, but my point is that we're talking PvE, not player created scenarios.  With humans involved you can't expect things to stay completely clean in an MMO, and lots of MMOs have an ERP subcommunity.  But prior to this, WoW has done a pretty decent job of trying to keep the topic of sexuality and relationships out of in-game PvE content; so much so, in fact, that WoW has been occasionally criticized for ignoring that area completely.  But somehow I think that Blizz didn't intend for sexuality to pop up in quite this fashion.

Why I Need to Consider an Upgrade, Part Whatever

Switching gears entirely, I have noticed a bit of a drag on in-game performance.  I don't have the graphics turned up all the way by any means, but I have noticed a bit of a drop in fps, around 5 or so.  I'm not sure how much of an impact there is if graphics is cranked up all the way, but I'd imagine that if your PC is on the older side you'll feel a bit of a slowdown.

Just Who is the Focus of the Game, Anyway?

In an MMO, you play the hero.  Sure, you could be a grunt or a noble or somewhere in between, but in the end it is the player that is the hero.  At the same time, Blizz concentrates a lot of its storytelling and lore on the faction leaders and their interactions.  Nothing could have emphasized this weird dichotomy more than on Tuesday when both the pre-release Mists patch dropped and the book Tides of War was released.  

Tides is pretty much standard Blizzard novel fare, which I once likened to reading a David Eddings novel.  All the major players are the Azeroth-erati, and the story revolves completely around them and their impact on the world.  It works well enough, I suppose, except that it doesn't mesh with WoW itself.

WoW is the story of us, as a WoW Insider article by Matt Rossi so aptly put it.  We're not kings and queens, organizational leaders or extraterrestrial beings.  We're not dragons or powerful denizens of the forests.  We're people who rise to the occasion.  If nothing else, the game makes it perfectly clear that we are not the Azeroth-erati; we may get the occasional party thrown our way, but we are spectators when the Powerful arrive on scene.  Ironically enough, it is because the Azeroth-erati depend on the players to get things done in-game that I get this weird feeling every time I flip through a WoW novel.  The cast is so insular, I can't help but feel like a voyeur, but at the same time I wonder where the hell we are in the novels.



EtA:  the pathfinder.wikia.com link was no longer active, so I replaced it with one from Paizo itself.

Dear Blizzard....

...your tuning needs work.

When, as an L78 Affliction Warlock, I can drop into Malykriss over in Icecrown and clear out all the L80 normals without breaking a sweat, you've got some overpowered damage issues.  And yes, I do have some heirlooms on, but I also have a lot of L70 PvP gear on.

However, I will give you props for the delightfully insane sounds of the Shivarra.  I keep looking over at her, expecting tentacles or something.

Puppies Want Dungeon!

There seems to be one bug coming out of the 4.0.6 patch:  race changed Worgen are unable to queue for any Cataclysm instances.  The Worgen started from scratch are having no problems, but the ones who wanted to swap out their toon for a Worgen are currently puttering around Stormwind, chasing Druids in cat form.

EtA:  Looks like hotfixes are being rolled out.  Your favorite puppy may soon be able to run around in an instance shortly!